Akathist of the Burning Bush

This article presents the Acathist of the Burning Bush, a liturgical hymn composed in Romania in the aftermath of the Second World War by the poet Sandu Tudor, who became the monk Daniel and died a martyr in the late 1950s. The text, published here for the first time, is a poetic and liturgical work structured according to the traditional form of the acathist, alternating kontakia and oikoi addressed to the Mother of God. The approach is that of a mystical creation which articulates Marian theology and hesychast spirituality: Mary is presented therein as a model and mediator of the prayer of the heart, a central figure of the Philokalic tradition. The contribution of this text is considerable: it bears witness to the vitality of Orthodox hesychasm in the twentieth century and constitutes a major spiritual and literary document of the Romanian Orthodox Church.